


chasing paper

by elainebarrish



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:43:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: art gallery au inception drabbles, primarily mal/ariadne with a side of arthur/eames





	chasing paper

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [kiss me in the d a r k dark tonight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10075097) by [elainebarrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish). 



> basically I have real bad writer's block atm and I just want to write stuff in this universe bc I miss it, but I've already done like The Main Part so these are just like. random snatches I guess

Mal meets Eames in a stuffy, too small art gallery, one of those that is too small for the work it's displaying, one that leads the artist whose work is on show wincing a little, leaves them dreaming of the way that they could display their work someday, when they've made it into the big leagues. He’s schmoozing, making a show of himself, and when their eyes meet he raises his eyebrows, some kind of ambiguous but exasperated expression, one that tells her that he dreams of the big leagues too. No one knows who she is, not yet, but she knows, has always known, that her ambition is going to put her far ahead of everyone else, that no one can even tell that she isn't always wearing couture, that everyone should feel as though she already  _ is _ the big leagues.

 

They don't introduce themselves that night, don't truly interact for another year, and when they do it's something new, something unprecedented, bitching with a touch of snobbery and flirtation and she thinks that this is a man she could handle becoming present within her life, and the first thing he ever says to her is along the lines of the art being terrible, all of it, all of the art he's seen recently, something along the lines of how he knows he could set up a gallery better, and later that night, when she's had some champagne and they're in a bar, screaming over the music, he tells her that he remembers that first night, had asked around about her, and one of the things that she remembers the most vividly, other than the bright colourful lights and the two of them sharing a cigarette out front at 4am, is Eames declaring that Dominic Cobb is one of the finest assholes in the business.

 

They become something like friends after that, people that don't necessarily spend time together on purpose but that find themselves drinking the same bad, cheap, free wine at horrible parties and events, people that can stand in front of a bad painting and pronounce it's terrible, loudly and in a way that makes other people listen. They spend more time in bars, and they party harder than they work, in the early days, before they start, seriously, making something out of themselves. He's the first person she tells, one night when they're high at 3am, that she’ll get to the top, however she has to do it, whoever she has to stand on, and he says that he believes her, that she could do it.

 

Eventually she buys that first art gallery, the one they first met in, eventually she finds herself in need of people, and Eames is someone she remembers, someone she's exchanged air kisses with at auctions and in back rooms and someone who has some kind of reputation. He's the kind of man that will do anything, she knows this and he knows that that is what he’s known for in certain circles, and she's been circling him for months, been pruning their almost friendship into something that will lead to trust, that will lead to his dedication. They're cut from the same cloth, and she thinks she can tame him into something she can use, into something that will help her build this empire that she dreams of.

 

It’s just the two of them until she meets Saito, until he becomes her financial backing, until he supports the back room deals that she makes behind a carefully polished veneer that everyone believes, and then there's Arthur. Arthur isn't someone she would have hired, not then, but Eames pushes her. Eames, she's sure, is entirely in love with him the first time he sees him in a waistcoat, but it's not that that convinces her to hire him, not even with his continuing apparent interest in being exasperated with Eames. He's not in the business, not really, he knows some people that Eames knows, is involved in something shady all of his own, that is somehow peripherally involved with stealing paintings and charming art gallery owners. In the end it's a shared whisper between Eames and Arthur, a dare that leads to Dominic Cobb’s keys in her hands (Cobb is a man that gets many things stolen from him over the years that follow, a man that pays for his inability to work with her over and over and over again).

 

They move into an abandoned store eventually, large enough that pieces can be shown with the space they deserve, with big windows and solid, hardwood floors. The three of them are the ones that make it into what she's dreamed of, they sand the floors and put up dividing walls and build the counter from an Ikea flat pack that none of them can decipher the instructions for. Saito sends her the money, of course, to get the place done professionally, but she knows an interior decorator won't get the light bulbs she wants, or the exact flooring, or the correct marble countertops in the small kitchenette. She buys Louboutins instead, and takes Arthur and Eames when she buys materials, when she chooses which floor lamps she wants in her office. They get bonuses, after she sees them rip up the floors, after the three of them spend an entire five days painting just the exterior walls. The back room, with its shadows and bare brick and scuffed flooring, never gets renovated, becomes somewhere that gets used as some sort of dumping ground, and at least five years later there's still leftover paint in a corner.

 

Mal thinks of this place, of those weeks with sanding and paint on her face and sawdust in her hair as when the three of them became the best team they could have done, thinks of the gallery as their base, as some sort of home. She’s not prone to sentimentality, never has been, but when they pop a bottle of champagne (the first of many) in that expansive, clean, light, space she thinks that this is the beginning, and when she looks at Eames he raises his glass, smiling.

 

“You did it,” he says, and she laughs, something like relief.

 

“Not quite,” she replies, but they both know this is the beginning, that is her getting to where she wants to be.

 

“Cobb won't know what hit him,” Arthur adds, and Mal smirks, knowing that he's right, that she's done what many thought she couldn't. 


End file.
